Trump signs executive order banning transgender women from female sports in US

US President Donald Trump has enacted an executive order prohibiting transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

“The war on women’s sports is over,” he said on Wednesday, February 5, “With my action this afternoon, we are putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding.”

This executive order, signed on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, asserts that it is “the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” Under the order, the assistant to the president for domestic policy will bring together representatives of “major athletic organizations and governing bodies, and female athletes harmed by such policies, to promote policies that are fair and safe, in the best interests of female athletes.”

This recent action by the president is part of the Republican Party’s wider initiative to eliminate all acknowledgment of transgender individuals from both state and federal programs.

On his first day in office, Trump signed a different executive order stating that there are only two sexes and prohibiting federal funding for any initiatives related to “gender ideology.”

Moreover, House Republicans have passed legislation that would outright ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports.

Currently, in nearly half of the United States, transgender women are barred from competing in women’s sports at both K-12 and higher education levels; however, this order aims to extend those prohibitions nationwide.

The order further instructs the education secretary to give precedence to “Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions (including athletic associations composed of or governed by such institutions) that deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women’s category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.” (Federally funded K-12 public schools and colleges are required to comply with Title IX, which bars discrimination based on sex in educational settings.)

“My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter women,” he said. “It’s going to end and nobody’s gonna be able to do a damn thing about it because when I speak [I] speak with authority.” (Trump was referring to an Olympic gold medal–winning Algerian boxer whom some accused of being transgender; the boxer has publicly said she was born a woman.)

Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center, expressed in a statement that transgender students do not pose a risk in sports and are entitled to the same opportunities as their fellow students.

“The far-right’s disturbing obsession with controlling the bodies, hearts, and minds of our country’s youth harms all students,” Graves said.